News Releases

Ithaca Professor's Work to be Shown on PBS Series

ITHACA, NY — Time lapse photography and video shot by an Ithaca College faculty member will be seen in an upcoming episode of “Fabric of the Cosmos,” a four-part series for “Nova” being aired by PBS. Tom Nicholson, an associate professor of television-radio in the Roy H. Park School of Communications, worked on the episode titled “The Illusion of Time,” which will premiere at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, November 9.

In central New York, the program can be seen on Binghamton public television station WSKG and Syracuse public television station WCNY.

Based on the book by physicist Brian Greene, who also hosts the series, “Fabric of the Cosmos” takes viewers to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time and the universe. The “Illusion of Time” episode hurtles 50 years into the future before stepping into a wormhole to travel back to the past, along the way revealing a new way of thinking about time in which moments past, present and future exist all at once.

In addition to shooting critical video and time lapse photography to illustrate concepts of time, Nicholson appears on screen as a gas station mechanic in a sequence explaining Einstein’s theory of how time slows down when an object is in motion.

Prior to joining the Park School faculty in 2002, Nicholson spent over 20 years in the film and television industry and his documentary work as a producer, director and editor has been broadcast in the U.S., Europe and Australia. He has worked on programs for National Geographic, the BBC and PBS, including the 2006 documentary “The Gold Rush” as part of the “American Experience” series.